What is EMPA Postdoctoral Fellowship?

EMPAPOSTDOCS-II is an individual-driven research and career advancing fellowship which follows a bottom-up approach and offers incoming and re-integrating international mobile researchers a 2-year full employment contract at Empa. It allows experienced researchers from all over the world to set up and implement a research project and get the opportunity to work on their own research idea at one of the 30 research laboratories of Empa. The following research areas welcome applications:

• Nanostructured Materials

• Sustainable Built Environment

• Health and Performance

• Natural Resources and Pollutants

• Energy

Projects can be carried out in the three sites of Empa at Zurich, St. Gallen or Thun depending on the location of the lab. The fellows can choose their topic and destination within this frame.

Who is eligible for EMPA Postdoc?

There are two mobility schemes in the EMPAPOSTDOCS-II programme, the incoming mobility scheme and the re-integration scheme. Regardless of the mobility scheme, the main eligibility criteria for the Empa Postdocs programme are the following:

The applicant must

Be an experienced researcher: at the time of the application deadline be in possession of a doctoral degree, irrespective of the time taken to acquire it.

Not have finished her/his PhD more than six years before.

The point of time of reference for these dates is the call closure.

For the incoming mobility scheme, a specific eligibility criterion is that the applicant must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc) in Switzerland for more than 12 months in the 3 years immediately prior to the application deadline. Short stays, such as holidays, are not taken into account.

What is the aim?

EMPAPOSTDOCS-II wishes to make a significant contribution to the European Research Area by training excellent researchers with scientific and transferable skills to enable them for a successful career. The program offers attractive working conditions in an excellent research institute with high-end infrastructure and a thriving working environment.

What are the next steps?

Applications can only be submitted together with an Empa-based mentor. You will find the list of mentors in the box to the right once our third call for applications is open (from June 2019 to August 2019). Only one proposal per individual researcher will be evaluated. If you are interested in applying, search for a suitable mentor and contact the EMPAPOSTDOCS-II programme manager Dr. Juliane Sauer [email protected]with your CV (pdf) and mention the module/topic and potential mentor of your preference .

Duration and important dates

The programme will run from 2017-2022. There are three calls for applications June 1st 2017, June 1st 2018 and June 1st 2019, all with deadlines on August 31st. For the first two calls, a maximum of 20 fellowships will be granted. Successful candidates can start their fellowship on March 1st 2018 / 2019/ 2020.

Contact person

For any question or further inquiries please do not hesitate to contact us under [email protected]

2 thoughts on “EMPA Postdoctoral Fellowship:”

Hope you are fine and doing well, I am interested to search a suitable and relevant Department/ Agriculture Research Laboratory where I can conduct my postdoctoral studies under any Post doc Fellowship program of your organization EMPA’S or any other relevant program/Fellowship of Swiss Govt. I am an Agriculturist and specialized in Horticulture. My Ph.D is on “Pre and Post harvest management for the quality and shelf life of strawberry fruit” I completed my Ph.D from the University of Agriculture Peshawar, Pakistan in 2016 and conducted one year research study at Oregon State University (OSU), Corvallis, Oregon, USA. I worked in Horticulture Crops Research lab of USDA, USA, Labs of Horticulture Department and Food Science & Technology, Oregon State University for analysis of fruits sample and calculation of individual sugars through HPLC.

Kindly guide me or link with some relevant professor/scientist of Agricultural Food and Nutritional Science or any other relevant department to whom I may finalize my study plan and apply for the Post doctoral fellow/grants program of the Swiss Govt.
I am interested in Switzerland as I worked under SDC-Intercooperation and implemented their Agriculture related projects (Project for Horticulture Promotion, Livelihood Program etc) for more than 10 years in Pakistan. These projects are funded by SDC while implementation is the responsibility of Intercooperation (Swiss NGO). I also worked with the Swiss Humanitarian Aid (SHA) team for six months during 2005 earth quake in Pakistan for relief and rehabilitation activities.